Bradford Hundred Timeline
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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c2000 BC: Early Bronze Age burial at Jugs Grave, Inwood
7th century BC: Early Iron Age Budbury hilfort
late 3rd century: Bradford and Atworth Roman villas built
652: King Cenwalh fought at Bradanforda be Afne
705: A monastery at Bradford mentioned by St Aldhelm
709: Death of St Aldhelm
955: King Eadred granted the Manor of Bradford to Nunnaminster (Priory of St Mary), Winchester
957: King Edgar held a Great Witan at Bradford
983: King Æthelred II granted Westwood to his thegn Alfnoth
987: King Æthelred II granted Westwood to Leofwine
1001: King Æthelred II gave the Manor of Bradford to Shaftesbury Abbey
1002: King Æthelred II granted Westwood to Queen Emma
1043: Queen Emma granted Westwood to the Priory of St Swithun, Winchester
1080: Domesday Survey listed property for King William I
c1125: Foundation of Monkton Farleigh Priory
1205: Charter of King John restored and confirmed the Hundred of Bradford
1216, August: King John visited Bradford
1235: St Margaret’s Leper Hospital founded in Bradford
1280: The Abbess of Shaftesbury claimed a fair at Bradford over the Feast of Holy Trinity
1281: King Edward I unsuccessfully claimed the Manor of Bradford
1295: Bradford sent two members to Edward I’s Parliament
1348: The Black Death plague -huge loss of life
1349: Vicarage of Bradford ordained
1361: Second attack by the Black Death
1400: Pope Boniface IX appealed for donations to repair the Town Bridge
1530: Death of Thomas Horton, clothier of Iford and Bradford
1536: Dissolution of Monkton Farleigh Priory
1539: Dissolution of Shaftesbury Abbey
1540: Visit of John Leland to Bradford
1541: Dissolution of St Swithun’s Priory, Winchester; Westwood granted to Winchester Cathedral
1609: Outbreak of plague
1643 July: Royalist troops under Sir Ralph Hopton crossed the river at Bradford and headed north
1646: Outbreak of plague
1659: Flemish spinners and weavers settled in Bradford by Paul Methuen
1674: More Flemish spinners and weavers settled in Bradford by William Brewer
1688: Mineral water discovered at Holt
1698: The Grove Meeting House, Middle Rank, Bradford opened
1700: Hall’s Almshouses built
1712: Bradford Grammar School founded
1718: Quaker Meeting House built, St Margaret’s Street, Bradford
c1725: Packhorse Bridge, Broughton Gifford built
1726: Riot by weavers against working conditions
1731: Stokeford Bridge built
1739 July: John Wesley preached to 1000 at Bearfield
1742 April: fire destroyed several houses in Bradford
1752: First Bradford Roads Act- roads to Monkton Combe, Steeple Ashton, Staverton, Cockhill
1752-3: Smallpox epidemic
1762: Bradford Roads Act- road to Melksham and Lacock
1769: John Renison first postmaster
1777: Bradford Roads Act- road to Kingsdown
1787, February: Riot by narrow-cloth weavers in Bradford and elsewhere
1791, May: Luddite riot in Bradford with three deaths
1792: Bradford Roads Act- road to Bathford (Bath Road)
1792: Violent wind damaged Holy Trinity church roof and other buildings
1794: Kennet Avon Canal construction began at Widbrook
1810: Kennet & Avon Canal completed from Reading to Bath
1818: Coppice Hill Wesleyan Chapel built in Bradford
1823: Zion Chapel, Conigre Hill, Bradford opened
1826: Riot in Bradford over food prices
1828: Atworth School built
1830: Bradford British Nondenominational School opened
1831: Local Board of Health set up
1832: Bradford Poor Law Union set up, with workhouse at Avoncliff
1832: Black Dog Turnpike Trust- new Warminster Road through Limpley Stoke
1832: St Michael’s church, Atworth rebuilt (except for the tower)
1834: Gas works opened in Frome Road, Bradford
1835 July: Chartist meeting at Holt; September: at Trowle Common
1839: Bradford Improvement Act: Town Commissioners inaugurated
1836: Bradford National School opened in Church Street
1841: Last Bradford Roads Act- the road to Wingfield
1841: Tithe Apportionment Map of Bradford Parish published
1841: South Wraxall and Westwood National Schools opened
1841: Christ Church built in Bradford
1841: St Nicholas’ church, Winsley rebuilt (except the tower)
1847: Christ Church National School opened
1848: Bradford station built by Wilts Somerset & Weymouth Railway Co.
1848: Stephen Moulton started manufacturing rubber in Bradford
1852: Several episodes of flooding
1853: St Mary’s National School opened in Broughton Gifford
1855: Bradford Town Hall opened
1856: Holt Road Cemetery opened
1857: Bradford-Bathampton and Holt-Devizes branch railways opened
1861: Bradford Co-operative Society formed
1863: Thatched properties in Winsley destroyed by fire
1863: Saunders’ chemist shop set up (now in the Museum)
1869: St Catherine’s Women’s Almshouses rebuilt
1870: The telegraph reached Bradford
1873: Holt Reading Rooms opened
1873: Bradford Turnpike Roads abolished
1876: Westwood became a separate parish
1878: Christ Church Infant School opened in Bradford
1882 October: Flood
1883: Bradford Waterworks opened
1883: Bullpit Mill, Church Street, destroyed by fire
1884: A great storm in December- the Ham tree in Holt blown down
1884: Holt, Limpley Stoke, South Wraxall and Atworth became separate civil parishes
1891: The Moulton Rubber Company merged with that of George Spencer of London
1891: St Katherine’s church, Holt rebuilt (except for the tower and porch)
1894 July: Bradford on Avon Urban District formed
1894 November: flood
1895 February: River Avon frozen for 3 miles above Bradford
1896: Trinity School opened in Newtown, Bradford
1897: Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee- Bradford Baths, Atworth clock tower built
1897: County Technical School (later Fitzmaurice Grammar School) opened
1898: National Telephone Co. exchange
1901: First phase of Bradford Post Office built
1903: Flood in June
1903: Bradford’s Free Grammar School closed
1903: Harold Peto purchased Iford Manor estate
1903: Building of Winsley Sanatorium begun (opened 1905)
1905: Applegate’s cloth mill at Greenland closed, the last woollen factory
1905: Broughton Gifford railway halt opened
1906 July: Avoncliff railway halt opened
1907: Bradford sewage works opened
1908: Richard Christopher took over the chemist shop
1910: Camerton to Limpley Stoke branch railway built
1911: Bradford Urban and Bradford & Melksham Rural District Councils formed
1914: G. & T. Spencer Ltd brewery voluntarily liquidated
1917: Bradford Union Workhouse at Avoncliff closed and became a Red Cross Hospital
1920: Wilkins Brothers & Hudson brewery, Newtown, Bradford and its pubs sold to Ushers
1920: The Alexander Cinema opened
1922 August: War memorial dedicated
1923: Public library opened in Bradford by Wiltshire County Council
1925: Death of John Moulton
1926 January: Flood
1933: Mains electricity reached Atworth
1934: Boundary changes, Bradford Without abolished and shared out among the parishes and UDC
1935 November: Flood
1936: Post Office, Shambles, extended
1937 February: Flood
1939: Bradford Maternity Hospital opened at Berryfield House
1939: Stonar School moved from Sandwich, Kent to Cottles House, Atworth
1943: The Courts, Holt given to the National Trust by Major T.C.E. Goff
1943: Great Chalfield Manor House and land given to the National Trust
1947: Bradford & District Hospital opened at Leigh House
1947 March: Melting snow, heavy rain caused flooding. August: Granby Hotel fire
1948: Centenary of Bradford’s rubber industry
1951: Sir Charles Hobhouse gave The Common to Broughton Gifford parish
1955: Broughton Gifford railway halt closed
1956: Spencer Moulton rubber company taken over by Avon; new Christ Church School opened
1957 March: The Great House at Holt demolished
1958: Willson’s chemist shop, Silver Street demolished
1960 December: Flood
1960: New rubber factory built at the “Paddock”
1962: The Moulton bicycle launched; Marcos cars set up in Greenland Mills
1962-3: Hard winter, heavy snow
1963 November: Gale, flood
1966: Holt Junction and Limpley Stoke railway stations closed
1968 July: Heavy rain, sudden flood
1972: Kingston Mill demolished
1974 January: Bradford Urban District and Bradford & Melksham Rural Districts succeeded by West Wiltshire District Council
1976: Westwood with Iford School opened
1979 December: Flood
1980: Fitzmaurice Grammar School closed; St Laurence School formed
1986 May: The Christopher pharmacy closed; Museum Society formed
1988: Bradford Co-op closed
1990 August: Kennet & Avon Canal restoration opened by the Queen
1990 September: Bradford on Avon Museum opened
1991: Dowty engineering at Atworth closed
1995: Dorothy House Hospice opened in Winsley
1995: Avon Rubber Company in Bradford closed
1998: Wiltshire Music Centre opened
2000: Flood
2000: Millennium celebrations (a year early!), “Millie” statue set up in Bradford
2003: Flood
2005: The Kingston Mills site sold for redevelopment
2012 November: Flood
2013 Christmas: Flood
2010: Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic